In 2 Peter 3, it may seem strange that the Spirit of God, instead of entering upon the subject of the coming of the Lord [for believers], should at once turn from it to speak of His day [the day of the Lord]. Many readers of this and other parts of the New Testament have, through haste, been led to confound the two things together, because of that very circumstance. But Peter is writing to those who had been Jews formerly, and they would be, therefore, somewhat familiar with the thought of “the day of the Lord,” for it is much spoken of in the Old Testament about the tremendous day of divine dealing with the habitable world. It is not merely the time when men will be raised from the dead to be judged before the great white throne. The day of the Lord is God is dealing with the world as it is — stopping all its wheels, arresting men in the midst of all the busy scenes of life, and calling them to account. The Old Testament, as it deals with man upon the earth, naturally lays great importance upon “that day.” The great white throne judgment is outside the world altogether. Heaven and earth will then have disappeared; it will be a judgment not connected with time, but ushering into eternity.
The Scoffers
Notice the wisdom of God here. Men do not scoff at the day of the Lord; even an unconverted Jew, with the Old Testament Scriptures in his hand, would have been afraid to make light of that. Rather, they were saying, “Where is the promise of His coming?” You Christians are waiting for the coming of Christ to make you happy. You are the most miserable people in the world; you enjoy nothing. You separate yourselves from all our interests and pleasures. You find fault with everything, not only with our bad ways, but with our best endeavors, and, after all, He does not come. “Where is the promise of His coming?” This is just the place in which the coming of Christ puts the Christian. What says the Spirit of God to those who deride the hope of the saints? I believe His answer, in effect, amounts to this: “I will not talk to you about the hope of the Christian, a theme that you make light of. But I warn you of a terrible scene that you have forgotten. There is such a thing as ‘the day of the Lord’ coming.” That is, He drops the subject of the church’s and the Christian’s hope, the coming of the Lord to receive us to Himself, which will take us out of all this scene, bring us into heaven and put us in peace and blessedness before the Father. The Holy Spirit in 2 Peter does not enter into this.
In Jude, he just gives us a little passing glimpse of the blessedness of the saints before God. “Unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.” There you have a glance into the deep inner joy of God’s saints that the world will know nothing about. It can never see what the Christian will enjoy best in the presence of God the Father, nor will it know anything of the coming of Christ which will introduce us into that scene. But the world is to see the day of the Lord, and when that day comes, the Lord will have all His saints in heaven, in the full brightness and intimacy of enjoyment of the Father’s house. Afterwards, He will bring them out and display them in His Father’s glory and that of the angels’ before the world, and then will come retributive judgment. The Lord will come from heaven and deal with men in the midst of their busy ways, and works and plans here below. This is what we see taken up in 2 Peter 3. You mock, he says, at our hope, but I will remind you of your fear, and when you hear of it you may tremble.
The Lord Is Long-Suffering
“Be not ignorant of this one thing [and let the beloved saints of God remember it well] that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years.” The Lord can amazingly crowd up events that might have spanned a thousand years into a single day, while, on the other hand, He might draw out those of a day into the patience of a thousand years. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise. He is unwilling to strike the terrible blow that is about to fall on the world. He “is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” These words entirely set aside the horrid idea (technically called reprobation) that any man ever was made for the purpose of being cast into hell. God, on the contrary, desires to save. His heart yearns over men. He waits upon them, entreats them, and sends the gospel to them that they may receive it. No doubt it is pure grace and only grace that awakens one soul to the love of God. But it is the sin — the unbelief of man (whatever be the judicial hardening in certain cases) — that shuts them up in the rejection of His mercy.
The converse of this appears in 2 Thessalonians, but it strongly confirms the same distinction. The Apostle launches, in 2 Thessalonians 1, into the solemn character of “that day,” with its righteous, retributive issues for both saints and sinners. In chapter 2 he is developing its special bearing on the destruction of the lawless one, the man of sin, that should arise at the close, the ripened fruit of Christian apostasy. His subject is “the day of the Lord,” as to which the Thessalonians had had their minds shaken and alarmed by false representations, but he turns aside to entreat them by “the coming of the Lord,” which was full of the sweetest and most comforting associations, not to heed these groundless rumors. Compare also 1 Thessalonians 4-5. Their special portion, at least their gathering to the Lord, is bound up with His “coming,” while “His day” is reserved for the judgment of His adversaries.
Whether the delay is short or long, whether of a thousand years or one day, the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night. It will come suddenly and be most unwelcome in this world. He makes the day of the Lord to encompass the whole space from the coming of the Lord in judgment, through the millennium, till the great white throne, for all that is implied here. “The heavens shall pass away with a great noise. ... The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” must take place before that day closes.
Godliness While God Is Patient
“Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness.” We may feel, and ought to feel, what man is in his scoffings against the truth of God. However, the best answer to it all is that of a godly conversation — the effect upon our souls and in our walk of the knowledge of that hope and our sense of the dreadful doom that awaits those that despise not only the righteous will of God, but His mercy. The Lord here shows us the importance of it. “What manner of persons ought ye to be ... looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God.” That is, we do not want this day to be delayed for our own sakes, but we love the patience of God towards men. This knowledge reconciles our hearts to the delay while, personally, we long for the Lord to come, because we know that when He has come and taken us away, the day of the Lord must quickly close in upon the earth.
“Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.” That gives the key to Peter — righteousness is the thought in this epistle as well as in the first. The coming of the Lord for His people is not the display of righteousness but the unfolding of His grace. He has begun and He will end with us in full and heavenly grace, by which He has chosen us to be with Himself. But here we get the day of the Lord, which has an aspect of righteousness even for us. When that day comes, we shall be manifested. The day will reveal. It is the time when we shall have rewards for special suffering or faithfulness of any kind; it is the time which will, therefore, detect where we have been unfaithful, and why we failed. The day of the Lord will not close till all evil has been banished and righteousness brought in and established, all enemies having disappeared. The day of the Lord is as emphatically righteousness as His coming is grace. The world is never said to see anything of the coming of the Lord for His saints. It will miss them, no doubt. The warning of the day of grace will have closed, though there may be raised up a testimony of the coming kingdom and judgments, and some hearts may be opened to receive it. But not a word of hope does Scripture hold out for those who now refuse the gospel.
Bible Treasury, 3:58